The Last Guardian is still alive and well, but making “slow progress,” Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuehi Yoshida has revealed.

Speaking to 1UP (via Eurogamer), he said the project is still “really important” to the publisher.

“The project has been making progress, but slow progress,” he said.

“So that’s tough, but we haven’t changed any focus. It’s still a really important project and a vision we want to see realised, and Fumito’s vision is really causing a very difficult challenge for the developers, so there’s some scrapping and rebuilding – iteration in the process. That’s why [it’s taking so long].”

Yoshida also clarified The Last Guardian director Fumito Ueda’s employment status, and its effect on the game’s development.

“He was an employee, and now he’s working on a contract basis,” he said. “You know, we discussed an arrangement so he could focus on the creative side. But his work and his presence on that team never changed, so it was just more a contractual rearrangement, and that was taken [by many] as ‘he left’.

“He comes in every day, and he’s probably one of the people who works the longest hours,” he added.

The Last Guardian‘s completed development may not mark the end of Sony’s relationship with Ueda, however.

“If this project goes well – you know, fingers crossed – we’ve worked with him for a long time so yeah I certainly hope we can maintain a relationship,” Yoshida said.